James Earl Lakins

The database page for James Earl Lakins

14 Sep 2005 James Lakins and I graduated from NCOC on Feb 19, 1969. On June 14, 1969 James, I and several others from our class left for Vietnam. James and I were assigned to the 101st Airborne and went through Screaming Eagles Replacement Training (SERTS) together. The last time I saw him he was giving me a bad time about not keeping up on the morning run at SERTS. In January 1970 James Lakins was killed by a booby trap outside of Firebase Jack. In April our company D/2/501 moved into that area of operations. I remember telling my squad that that a friend of mine had been killed here in January and that we should be alert for booby traps, as we had always worked in the jungle. We did not encounter any mines but James's death cerainly caused us to be extremely careful in the dangerous area. James was the last member of our NCOC class to be killed in Vietnam. Gary Goeckel deltaraider21@yahoo.com

A Note from The Virtual Wall The four men from Delta 1/501st Infantry who were killed by the boobytrap were 2LT Warren S. Hall, New Brighton, MN; SGT James E. Lakins, Henryville, IN; SP4 Robert H. Miller, West Chicago, IL; and PFC David A. Sweet, Dayton, OH.

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With all respect
Jim Schueckler, former CW2, US Army
Ken Davis, Commander, United States Navy (Ret)
Last updated 08/10/2009